Aborigine treaty plans rejected

Australian government ministers have dismissed proposals by an Aboriginal organisation for a treaty to heal the rifts between the country's black and white peoples.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission plans to hold a referendum among Aborigines to gauge support for a treaty and to establish the issues it should cover.

But the deputy prime minister, John Anderson, and the new reconciliation minister, Philip Ruddock, rejected the plan.

Mr Ruddock said it would divide Australia rather than unite it; he said treaties were about separatism rather than unity.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service